At Least One Person
Only now did Baek Yeo-eul remember Jerry's ability. She'd blacked out the instant her tension drained away after taking down the monster, all while enduring the dungeon's crushing pressure—and though her exhaustion deserved most of the blame, Jerry's ability did hold roughly a ten percent stake in that particular faint.
Gray mist that chewed a monster up and swallowed it whole.
Goosebumps prickled up the back of her neck as the scene replayed itself in her head. It wasn't that she'd forgotten. She'd simply been desperate to pretend she didn't know.
"...So you saw all of it?"
Of course she had. Anyone who'd heard that line and still possessed functioning instincts wasn't going to ask.
Jerry had merely said he'd been unable to look away, and so had watched her handle the monster. Baek Yeo-eul received it in an entirely different sense.
"...I'm not curious."
"Why not?"
Jerry asked with pure, guileless curiosity.
"Why should I be?"
At this point, Baek Yeo-eul was beginning to wonder whether she'd had any reason to ask in the first place.
"...No particular reason, I guess."
Realizing that Baek Yeo-eul genuinely wasn't curious about anything, Jerry nodded without protest. Then he sealed his lips, as if lost in thought.
'He's not sitting there deliberating over how to deal with me, is he?'
Unease gnawing at her, Baek Yeo-eul kept sneaking glances at him. Unfortunately, her fear scored a direct hit.
Jerry had always left people who knew about his ability alone—the state took care of them anyway. He never learned how they found out, but since it spared him any need to get blood on his own hands, it suited him fine.
This time, though, the target was a little different.
Jerry did know of figures as famous as Han Yi-hyeon. And he'd learned that Baek Yeo-eul was "that Han Yi-hyeon's partner," the woman currently stuffing every article in the news.
'What was it again—an 89% matching rate?'
If a Guide like that suddenly dropped dead, the fallout would be enormous. And besides, killing Baek Yeo-eul while she stood beside Han Yi-hyeon bordered on impossible.
Of course—barring exceptional circumstances. Like the one right now.
Jerry deliberated as he looked down at Baek Yeo-eul, who kept furtively glancing up at him. She was someone the nation would struggle to kill. Opportunities like this wouldn't come often. Han Yi-hyeon would push back, but if a monster had wandered in and she'd died in an accident while he was away, no one on earth could pin it on Jerry.
No one knew what happened inside a dungeon, and no law reached in there.
'What should I do?'
The Jerry of any ordinary day would have eliminated Baek Yeo-eul on the spot, no deliberation required.
But.
'I don't feel like it, that's why.'
Whim was a marvelous thing—so simple, so convenient. It lent legitimacy even to actions that had no reason behind them.
And Jerry wanted to get closer to Baek Yeo-eul. In a word: he wanted to make a good impression.
"I won't hurt you."
Baek Yeo-eul blinked, eyes going round with shock at having her thoughts read. Jerry didn't bother appending the useless remark that everything she was thinking showed plain on her face.
"If I'd meant to hurt you, I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of saving you."
He had a point.
Flustered as she was, Baek Yeo-eul had failed to grasp the obvious: if Jerry had simply used his ability to clear the monster from the start, there would never have been a situation where she needed to fear him killing her at all.
"And—sorry."
"......"
"That was because I was sleepy."
Baek Yeo-eul's face, already steeped in bewilderment, contorted at a word that had so obviously skipped every filter. Jerry hurried on.
"I wasn't in my right mind back then. I genuinely thought I was going to die just like that."
It was true that he'd snorted when Baek Yeo-eul said someone would come to rescue him. Jerry hadn't even been able to imagine walking out of this place alive.
They say a person with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous thing alive—so he'd barreled forward without an ounce of restraint. He'd had confidence too, of course, but that much went without saying.
"No one is coming to save me."
Jerry's gaze dropped. As those dense lashes fell, a shadow slid down over them. The slight pallor of his face and the deep cut of his eyes wove a strangely haunting air, the kind that made it hard to look away.
Baek Yeo-eul—who had been afraid, then flustered, then dead serious—caught an unintended glimpse of the sincerity buried in his words.
"...There's at least one."
That was why those words slipped out.
'Good grief. I'm comforting him while accepting his apology.'
Baek Yeo-eul found the whole thing absurd, but not many people could hear someone say, so wretchedly, no one is coming to save me right in front of them and simply brush it off with an oh, I see.
Jerry's lips curled in a faint sneer.
"Who knows."
An answer, vague to the last.
"Well, my parents, or—"
"I'm an orphan."
"Me too."
Jerry's eyes went wide.
"Ahahaha!"
Baek Yeo-eul's brow furrowed. She couldn't make sense of Jerry abruptly erupting into uproarious laughter. She hadn't said a single funny thing.
"When I tell people I'm an orphan, they all apologize. Yours is the first reaction like this."
Everyone got flustered and stole nervous looks at his face. Then came the I'm sorry, I didn't mean it on purpose. But me too?
The laughter refused to die down. Jerry laughed hard enough that he had to wipe the tears pooling at the corners of his eyes.
Baek Yeo-eul was less than pleased.
"Never seen an orphan before?"
"No, no. I'm not laughing at you. I'm an orphan myself, so what would that make me? I don't have any friends, either."
'How impressive.'
Baek Yeo-eul answered by scratching her cheek.
"Forget it. This isn't a bet over who's more miserable. I'll take the apology."
The moment she finished speaking with a deep sigh, the basement door swung open. Han Yi-hyeon, having destroyed the core, said:
"It's over now. Let's head out."
At long last, it was time to leave this dungeon.
The blue-roofed house was quiet. There wasn't even a monster's corpse left, and when Baek Yeo-eul scanned her surroundings in confusion, Han Yi-hyeon supplied the answer.
"Destroying the core made it all disappear."
They walked for a while toward the spot where they'd first entered the dungeon, and a hairline crack revealed itself. Han Yi-hyeon seized it without ceremony and pried it open.
Beyond it might have been brilliant light, or it might have been pitch darkness. She blinked once, and a shrill ringing bored into her skull.
"Ugh."
Baek Yeo-eul screwed her eyes shut and clutched her head. A firm grip on her shoulder kept her from staggering. Before long, her bleared vision slowly clawed its clarity back.
There were people. Countless of them.
And when she spotted the one who stood out even among that crowd, Baek Yeo-eul could only blink, dazed.
"...Director?"
Do Geon was there.
"Uh, uhh..."
Baek Yeo-eul stared as the man closed the distance at speed.
"Are you all right?"
"Uh... yes..."
"What are you doing. Check Guide Baek Yeo-eul's condition."
When the newcomer stepped into view, Baek Yeo-eul could only gape.
It was Ha Yoon-seo.
"Doctor...?"
She was just about to ask what on earth the woman was doing here when someone bulldozed through the crowd.
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul! Esper Han Yi-hyeon!"
It was Yu Jin-young, aged a good few years since she'd last seen him. He came toward them, voice thick with tears. And Yu Jin-young truly did want to cry.
When the phone call had come through reporting that Han Yi-hyeon entered the dungeon alone, Do Geon said:
"Wait one more hour."
"Sorry?"
"We arrive shortly."
The call had ended on that incomprehensible note. Yu Jin-young had been bewildered, but there'd been no room to dwell on it—because Han Yi-hyeon hadn't finished clearing the monsters before tearing the rift open and stepping inside, and the monsters, which had frozen mid-motion, had begun to run wild.
An hour vanished in the scramble to contain the situation. And then Do Geon appeared—having brought along a single A-rank Esper with a teleportation ability, and a medical team.
Gasping for breath, Yu Jin-young caught sight of that A-rank Esper receiving guiding with a face drained of all color, and understood: Do Geon had come all the way here from Korea by teleportation. Mercifully it hadn't tipped into a rampage, but the Esper, forced to chain ability after ability across that vast distance, ultimately passed out cold. Yu Jin-young, however, had no presence of mind to spare the poor man a shred of pity.
"What exactly were you people doing? Standing right beside them, just watching? Who is in charge here? I believe you and I need to have a conversation."
Do Geon raked them with rapid-fire English.
Yu Jin-young hurried to lay out the situation in detail, reciting everything—the matters already summarized over the phone, the accident that had occurred, and even the words the British official in charge had uttered.
The moment the Director of the Guide Protection Center—a significant post even by headquarters' standards—appeared in person, the British official bowed as if trying to burrow straight into the earth and summoned someone of seniority sufficient to speak with Do Geon face to face.
Do Geon showed no mercy. He invested meaning in every trivial detail and dragged the exchange out, and the high-ranking official—who had begun with an air of easy composure—soon found himself floundering.
Watching that cold, glacial precision at work, Yu Jin-young reflected that serving under Do Geon had been punishing in the extreme—but with the man now on his side, jointly pecking the enemy to pieces, there could be no sturdier reinforcement.
But that was that, and the real problem lay elsewhere.
The Gate.
Ordinarily, once someone entered a dungeon, the rift closed. Han Yi-hyeon was the exception, having torn open the crack himself and gone through. And after he'd slipped inside, it had sealed shut again—so all anyone could do was wait.
Once the situation was more or less settled, the crowd fixed their eyes on the firmly shut rift and waited for it to open.
Two hours after Baek Yeo-eul had been left behind, the rift quivered faintly, then ripped itself wide, and Han Yi-hyeon burst out. Behind him came Baek Yeo-eul, the very person Yu Jin-young had been waiting so desperately for. Others emerged after them as well, but none of them registered in his eyes.
"Thank god... truly, thank god..."
In the end, Yu Jin-young was audibly sniffling.
With a grown man she'd known for less than a day weeping in front of her, Baek Yeo-eul stammered, at a complete loss for words. Do Geon didn't spare Yu Jin-young a single glance and addressed Ha Yoon-seo instead.
"How is her condition?"
"Some dehydration and a few minor scrapes, but nothing serious. She was in the dungeon a long time, so she's a touch anemic and her pulse is unstable, but rest should set her right."
Ha Yoon-seo, who had spent the interval fishing instruments out of her medical bag and running a quick once-over, recited Baek Yeo-eul's status like a machine.
Baek Yeo-eul looked around blankly. Han Yi-hyeon and Do Geon were talking, their expressions grave; judging from the fragments that drifted over, it concerned this Aberrant Gate. Ha Yoon-seo was dressing the small scrapes out of concern for infection, and Yu Jin-young was still crying.
'Ah! Jerry!'
Baek Yeo-eul whipped her head around. But there was no flash of blond anywhere in sight. He had definitely come out of the rift with them—and yet Jerry had vanished without a trace.
"Looking for something?"
Ha Yoon-seo, mid-lament about being hauled out here in the middle of her workday, let her gaze trail casually around, following Baek Yeo-eul's.
"The man who was behind me a moment ago—did you see where he went?"
"Hmm. I really couldn't say..."
Too busy with her examination, Ha Yoon-seo said she had never laid eyes on Jerry.
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul, let's get you somewhere to rest."
"Oh. Yes."
Baek Yeo-eul would have liked to sweep the area a little longer, but she accepted Han Yi-hyeon's suggestion. Her body, robbed of any proper rest, was demanding sleep. With steps that somehow refused to lighten, she left the scene.
Jerry watched Baek Yeo-eul from far away, and once she disappeared into a car, he, too, shortly melted from view.